'When A Lao Woman Of Southern China Has A
Child, She Goes Out At Once.
The husband goes to bed exhausted, like a
woman giving suck.
If he does not take care, he becomes ill. The woman has
no harm.'"
L., pp. 91-95.
Under the title of The Couvade or "Hatching," John Cain writes from
Dumagudem, 31st March, 1874, to the Indian Antiquary, May, 1874, p.
151:
"In the districts in South India in which Telugu is spoken, there is a
wandering tribe of people called the Erukalavandlu. They generally pitch
their huts, for the time being, just outside a town or village. Their
chief occupations are fortune-telling, rearing pigs, and making mats.
Those in this part of the Telugu country observe the custom mentioned in
Max Mueller's Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. II., pp. 277-284.
Directly the woman feels the birth-pangs, she informs her husband, who
immediately takes some of her clothes, puts them on, places on his
forehead the mark which the women usually place on theirs, retires into a
dark room where is only a very dim lamp, and lies down on the bed,
covering himself up with a long cloth. When the child is born, it is
washed and placed on the cot beside the father. Assafoetida,
jaggery, and other articles are then given, not to the mother, but
to the father. During the days of ceremonial uncleanness the man is
treated as the other Hindus treat their women on such occasions. He is not
allowed to leave his bed, but has everything needful brought to him."
Mr. John Cain adds (l.c., April, 1879, p. 106): "The women are called
'hens' by their husbands, and the male and female children 'cock children'
and 'hen children' respectively."
LI., p. 99 n. "M. Garnier informs me that Mien Kwe or Mien Tisong is
the name always given in Yun Nan to that kingdom."
Mien Tisong is surely faulty, and must likely be corrected in Mien
Chung, proved especially at the Ming Period. (PELLIOT, Bul. Ecole franc.
Ext. Orient, IV., July-Sept, 1904, p. 772.)
LI., LII., pp. 98 seq.
WAR AGAINST THE KING OF MIEN.
The late Edouard HUBER of Hanoi, writing from Burmese sources, throws new
light on this subject: "In the middle of the thirteenth century, the
Burmese kingdom included Upper and Lower Burma, Arakan and Tenasserim;
besides the Court of Pagan was paramount over several feudatory Shan
states, until the valleys of the Yunnanese affluents of the Irawadi to the
N.E., and until Zimme at the least to the E. Narasihapati, the last king
of Pagan who reigned over the whole of this territory, had already to
fight the Talaings of the Delta and the governor of Arakan who wished to
be independent, when, in 1271, he refused to receive Kublai's ambassadors
who had come to call upon him to recognize himself as a vassal of China.
The first armed conflict took place during the spring of 1277 in the Nam
Ti valley; it is the battle of Nga-caung-khyam of the Burmese Chronicles,
related by Marco Polo, who, by mistake, ascribes to Nasr ed-Din the merit
of this first Chinese victory.
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